


Adam Comes to Visit

by Elphen



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Adam being helpful, Adam's a good kid, Can't think of more tags, Caring Aziraphale (Good Omens), Caring Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley's Bentley (Good Omens), Eventual retirement, Good Omens Spoilers, Handholding, Help, Hurt Crowley, Ice Cream, Idiots in Love, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Slight Mention of Trauma, Soft Aziraphale (Good Omens), Soft Crowley (Good Omens), Soft Kisses, Sushi, Whales, very slight though promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 04:46:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19783555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elphen/pseuds/Elphen
Summary: Adam decides that he ought to visit the angel and demon he met on that Saturday. He'd rather liked them, even if they hadn't spend much time together. And the ones Adam likes, he wants to make happy.The angel and demon might take more to the whole thing than they expected.





	Adam Comes to Visit

**Author's Note:**

> Another little story for this fandom. Still unsure and nervous about writing them, tbh. But I've tried.
> 
> I've had trouble sleeping for a fortnight and this is what I ended up spending the time on. It was written on my phone and there's probably mistakes galore, in characterisation and all. But I've had the idea since I finished the book a few months ago and am glad I managed to get it written, even if it expanded somewhat beyond my original intention. That is par for the course for me, though.  
> Here's hoping I haven't screwed up. :)

It didn’t take long to find them. In fact, though there should have been quite a lot of obstacles for a boy who had only recently turned eleven, the biggest hurdle turned out to be…well, two things, really, though they both sprang from the same issue.

It was all a matter of not being noticed. Of not having his intentions found out.

Not by his father, who most definitely would put his foot down. Not so much about who Adam intended to visit, really, but going all that way? No, it wouldn’t be allowed, and certainly not on his own.

That brought him to the other problem. Pointing out that he wouldn’t be alone because the rest of the Them was going with him would not only not help the matter in relation to his father, but it’d be a lie, too.

Normally, he wouldn’t even have thought to exclude the other three, not in an adventure like this. Something told him, however, that this was one trip he needed to make on his own. At least this first one. Then he could bring the rest of the Them with him next time. Yeah, that sounded about right.

But in order for him to have a chance at going off himself - even by train, it wasn’t as though London was all that close that he could go there by bike - he would need to find something that would keep the other three occupied for at least a whole day, without him having to organise further or being found out he wasn’t there.

They were bound to find out, of course, but if he found them something good, they wouldn’t be too mad at him. Probably. Especially not if he had something great to tell them and they got to go next time.

One might argue that it would be easier and smarter not to go. After all, what would it accomplish? And yet, he had the deep and certain knowledge that he should. Ought to, even. Besides, he had rather liked them, even if they hadn’t spent much time together. There’d been other things to focus on, on that tarmac, after all. Adam wanted the people he liked to be happy. So, there were just those two things that needed sorting, really. He could manage that before Saturday.

* * *

It had been a long day already, with too many customers, and Aziraphale was looking forward to some lunch.

If he had to be perfectly honest, there had been two, one of whom was actually looking to sell a book rather than buy - one which Aziraphale was interested in buying which was even more of a rarity - and the other was looking for a bathroom.

Still, the morning had felt rather crowded and he was determined to have a completely quiet afternoon, starting with a good lunch.

Not on his own, though.

No, first he had to go upstairs and wake up the demon that had been determined to sleep the morning away, telling him to go away before he’d even said anything.

As he’d been having a few nightmares through the night, though, Aziraphale didn’t blame him at all, and also knew that he didn’t actually mean it when he said to go away.

He was just starting to make his way up to their flat - Crowley still had his but most of the stuff he had, which wasn’t much, relatively speaking, had migrated to the one they now shared above the shop - when he heard the doorbell jangle and then the door close.

Well, that was odd. He knew he’d locked the door after the last one had managed to get in, and had shut the blinds, too.

“We’re closed,” he called out as he turned and made his way back down into the shop. Honestly, these people, didn’t they -?

“I know,” came an answer, in a voice that had yet to break. A voice that he knew. No, it couldn’t be. How could he have -?

He stopped when he saw, standing just inside the door, golden-brown curls tousled by wind, body slightly slouched, and pedigree mutt by his side, sitting quietly and obediently, someone he wouldn’t have ever expected to see again.

Well, that wasn’t quite true, was it? He _had_ made a mental note to go and check up on the boy at a later date, when things had had a chance to settle a little, both for them and for him. Not to…well, perhaps a bit out of curiosity whether he still had his powers, just a bit. But mostly, it would be to see how the boy was doing.

That said, he most certainly hadn’t ever expected him to turn up here. An 11-year-old boy, from Oxfordshire, in Soho, on his own. Granted, he was the son of Satan, the Antichrist, possibly still with some powers intact, but he was also still only a kid who wasn’t used to being somewhere like London.

“Adam,” he said in a sort of greeting, hoping that his voice didn’t betray him. “How lovely to see you. I just…didn’t expect to see you.”

He smiled, warmly.

Adam looked at him without speaking for a moment. Then, he cocked his head a little, thoughtfully.

“You thought I’d forget, too,” he said. It wasn’t a question. “Because I said it would be best if people forgot. You thought I’d make myself forget, too.”

“…Well, perhaps,” Aziraphale admitted. “I certainly wouldn’t blame you if you’d decided to.”

Honestly, he wouldn’t. Adam had seemed rather wise beyond his years when he had argued with the official representatives of Heaven and Hell, but even so, to know you were the son of Satan…that beat most adoption emotional turmoil.

Adam didn’t say anything to that. Instead, he looked around him as though taking stock of his surroundings. Dog stayed obediently by his side, looking up at its master as though he was its entire world. Which in a manner of speaking, he was. Even so, though you had to know what to look for, its hellish origins were still just about detectable.

When the silence had gone on for ages, or about four minutes, Aziraphale broke it.

“Adam, what are you doing here?” he asked. He hadn’t moved since he’d spotted the boy.

For a moment, it didn’t seem like Adam had heard him but then he turned his head to face him. Then he shrugged slightly.

“Dunno. Suppose I just wanted to make sure you were - “he began.

He was interrupted by the sound of someone bursting through a door and starting to clatter down the stairs.

“Angel,” called a voice, his very favourite one, and it shouldn’t sound as lost as it did. It shouldn’t sound lost or hurt at all and pleading should only be a soft and positive thing.

It didn’t help that he followed that up with, “Angel, where are you?”

Technically speaking, he would know where he was. Not just because the bookshop was almost always where Aziraphale could be found these days when he was on his own. No, he’d know because they had both had a strong sense of where the other was in the world for…well, about a millennium, give or take, one which had only grown over time.

That was part of the reason it had been so distressing for Crowley when he couldn’t find Aziraphale when the bookshop had burned. He’d confessed to that in a quiet, unguarded moment. To not be able to find him or to sense him, knowing what that meant, had cracked something fundamental inside of him.

He had tried to play it off cool at the airbase later on, of course, there were others there and it really hadn’t been the time.

To then first see Aziraphale again, sharing a body with Madam Tracy, and then have him there, re-corporated, that had been a huge relief, both at the time and later.

But despite that, the loss had settled itself in and he still had some trouble coping, as was evidenced each time he woke up after a night like this.

Aziraphale had hoped to be the one to wake him, with a suggestion for lunch, in order to avoid that happening.

He opened his mouth to call, “It’s okay, my dear, I’m in the shop”, but before he could, Crowley was halfway down the spiral staircase leading from the upper floor of the shop down to ground level, with a hurried, thumping step until he stopped, quite abruptly.

Both angel and boy looked up at the demon, who was gripping onto the handrails of the stairs as he stared down at them in turn.

“You,” he said, looking at Adam. His sunglasses were absent, as was the norm when they were alone, but Aziraphale could see his hand twitch, as if he wanted very much to materialise some.

That Crowley hadn’t been able to sense Adam - nor had Aziraphale himself, come to think of it - was a definite tick in the box for him not being an entirely ordinary boy, whatever else had happened.

“You,” Crowley repeated. “How the hell did you get here?”

Adam didn’t seem bothered by the question or by being addressed like that. He shrugged again. “Caught a train. Walked. It was easy.”

“You caught a train?” It was Aziraphale asking. Another shrug, this time with a smile. “But you - all the way from - such a lot could’ve happened!”

“Yeah. It could’ve. But it didn’t.” He wrinkled his nose slightly as he said it, as though he was disappointed in that fact.

“Adam, you can’t just…but you can, can’t you?” Aziraphale said, weakly as he realised it. “You can.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to him,” said Crowley, still leaning against the railings. He sounded confident about that and yet, when his gaze shifted from the boy to Aziraphale, he looked worried.

Aziraphale knew how he felt. Despite the obvious evidence that Adam was fine and could apparently handle going from Oxfordshire to London all on his own, with nobody the wiser before he’d gone - that he would’ve gotten permission from his parents seemed more unlikely than anything else - without anything happening, the thought of what could have occurred was horrible to contemplate.

More than that, he was now their responsibility. Regardless of how he’d gotten there, they couldn’t just tell him to go home and leave it at that.

Well, they could, technically, but he knew they weren’t going to. They owed it to the boy, didn’t they? In a way. And he had come all this way, too, to - what, exactly?

“Why exactly are you here?” Aziraphale asked.

“I was trying to say earlier, wasn’t I?” Adam returned, a faint trace of moodiness in his voice.

“Yes, I guess you were.”

“Well?” It came from Crowley.

“I suppose I wanted to see how you were.”

“Why on earth would you want to do that?” They had spent at most a few hours together, which had contained quite a lot of incident. Adam’s focus had been elsewhere. In context, it would make more sense for Madam Tracy to pop in or even Warlock, as absolutely absurd as that concept seemed. Adam only smiled at that, a smile that was full of both understanding and boyish devilment. Nevertheless, it felt…nice. Lovely, in fact. Like a genuine benevolence, almost a benediction, bestowed upon you.

Crowley looked at Aziraphale again, briefly, his expression…complicated. Then he snapped his fingers, a pair of sunglasses materialising in his other hand.

He could of course just have materialised them already on but that would have deprived him of the opportunity to put them on himself, and that just wouldn’t do, would it?

He looked back at the angel, then, and that small gesture sent warmth through Aziraphale because despite having donned the glasses, when he looked at him, he still took care to look over the top of them, giving Aziraphale a clear view of his eyes. Hiding from the world but not from him.

“Right, then,” he said, choosing, of all things, to vault himself over the handrails as though it was something that he always did rather than the first time.

He landed gracefully and looked down at Adam, who stared back, calm but still smiling. “Suppose we had better take you for some lunch, seeing as you’ve come all this way just to say hello.”

“Crowley, we can’t just - we ought to take him straight home. His parents must be worried sick!”

“They won’t be worried any more or less sick if he comes home in half an hour or five hours,” Crowley replied, apparently completely unconcerned. Adam’s smile became almost a grin at that.

Aziraphale gave his demon a slightly disapproving look but then sighed and relented. He might have a point, even if the angel didn’t like it much.

“Alright, then, if you insist. Let’s have some lunch, all three of us. But I am not taking you to one of those bun-places.”

Adam frowned, confused, and Crowley sighed heavily.

“Burgers, Aziraphale. They’re called burgers.”

“Oh. Right. Well, I am not subjecting myself to that,” Aziraphale said, firmly and definitively.

“Well, how about some…sushi, then?” Crowley asked cheerfully. “You ever have sushi, Adam?”

The boy shook his head. “That’s the fish stuff, isn’t it? You’re not going to feed me whales, are you?” he asked, suddenly suspicious as he looked from one to the other.

“Whales?” Crowley echoed, his head pulling back in slight disgust. “Never eaten a whale, don’t plan to now. Far too much brain, for one thing.”

That didn’t seem to convince Adam much. Aziraphale stepped forward, laying a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“We don’t have to get sushi,” he said reassuringly. “We can go somewhere else you would rather like.” _Please don’t let him say burger_.

“No, I’d like to, I think,” Adam said, thoughtful. “Just don’t want to - “

“No, of course not,” Aziraphale interrupted. “I know just the place. Well, then, off we go.”

He made a little shepherding motion with his free hand and Adam led the way out of the shop, Dog right on his heels.

Aziraphale and Crowley followed, the angel wondering at the sudden change in the demon’s behaviour, somewhat worried about it. Then he caught the yellow eyes looking at him askance.

He wasn’t unconcerned or chipper.

He was still affected by first the nightmares and then the pained panic of thinking Aziraphale wasn’t there, the trauma of it playing in his mind. Right now, he was trying to hold it together. For his own sake but mainly for Adam’s, who shouldn’t have his day ruined by that.

Not only did Aziraphale’s heart ache at the thought of the trauma he’d inadvertently caused by being discorporated, it ached at the demon’s readiness to suppress it as best he could for the sake of a child. At the same time, his heart swelled for that exact same reason.

Crowley always did have that little soft spot for the kids, didn’t he?

The angel didn’t say anything - they had a boy with them, one who was both bright and rather observant, too, it was hardly the time - but he slid his hand gently into the demon’s, who took it and squeezed immediately. Then he interlaced their fingers. All of this was done without looking at the other, but there was just the faintest hint of colour on the defined cheekbones.

Aziraphale smiled softly at that and rubbed his thumb across the skin it could reach.

Adam was waiting for them out on the pavement, Dog almost vibrating with all the new smells he could detect and therefore only just managing to stay obediently by his master’s side.

“You sure you’re okay with sushi, Adam?” Aziraphale asked.

Adam nodded.

“Right, well, let’s - “

“Take the car,” Crowley interrupted.

“Crowley, you are not driving the boy through London in that - that contraption!”

The demon looked rather affronted. “It’s not a contraption, it’s a vintage Bentley! Which you have been happy enough to get a ride in, too, on more than one occasion!”

“ _Yes_ , but - “ He didn’t need to say that with both Heaven and Hell mad at them - and wasn’t that an understatement on the lines of calling James I ‘not overly fond of witches’ or the Titanic disaster a bit of a whoopsie - the chance of getting new bodies if their current ones were discorporated was as good as non-existent.

Crowley seemed to hear what he wasn’t saying. “I’ll drive safely, okay?” he said, looking over at the other, voice quiet.

Aziraphale gave him such a grateful smile that Crowley immediately turned to the boy.

He looked down at the dog, lips pulling back for a moment in a grimace. Then he pushed forward. “Come on, then, let’s have lunch.”

* * *

The sushi restaurant Crowley drove them to - Adam had exclaimed ‘wicked!’ when he’d seen the car, even though he had technically been the one to bring it back, and Crowley had preened at the praise - was one that was notoriously difficult to get a table at, though not quite as bad as the Ritz. It also happened to be the one Aziraphale loved best.

When they arrived, and the angel had only had half a heart attack from Crowley’s driving, so he had been driving carefully, they were immediately led to the table without comment. Before the waiter left to get their drinks, though, he made a seemingly innocuous comment on how lovely it was to see their son at last. When the waiter had gone,

Aziraphale blinked in utter astonishment at what he’d just heard. Crowley’s eyebrows nearly collided with his hair line.

Of all the things Aziraphale might have expected, that was about the last one. He’d been coming there for years, almost since it opened, and they had never ever even so much as -

He looked over, admittedly a little sharply, at Adam sat beside him, looking convincingly innocent.

“What did you do?” the angel said. Another shrug without a further word.

“You did something.” That was Crowley, sat on the other side of the angel. He didn’t sound angry, though, which puzzled Aziraphale. More so because he sounded ever so slightly impressed, though probably nobody else would have picked up on it, and the angel wondered if he had heard that right.

“I can’t help it if people make assumptions, can I?” the boy asked. “Seems to me that if people’s assumptions are helpful, then there’s no need to correct them.”

“It’s still a lie,” Aziraphale pointed out but without much conviction. The boy did have a point and well…it felt rather sweet that he would think of it like that.

Crowley ordered, quite a large amount despite the fact that he tended to let Aziraphale help him finish off most of his serving. Then again, they did have a growing boy to think of.

A random thought of Crowley with toddler Warlock surfaced, warm and golden in its preservation as a memory, and for a moment, just a moment, he had the utterly absurd but somehow still appealing thought of them raising a child of their own, together, without pretence.

It was impossible, of course, and not because they were an angel and a demon. That hurdle was hardly a raised nub in the road at this point. It had more to do with the regrettably short life of humans and having one so close only to have to watch it die, wherever it ended up…

He wasn’t sure he could handle that, and as for Crowley…

The angel emerged from his thoughts to find Adam looking at him. Not staring, per se, but still fixing him with quite the thoughtful, penetrating gaze.

Aziraphale blinked, thrown a little.

Then the food arrived and both angel and demon threw themselves, enthusiastically and almost automatically into explaining and teaching Adam how to eat.

Crowley even went so far as to explain about the different types of fish, then went off on a tangent about deep sea denizens.

Adam, surprisingly, listened attentively and, it seemed, with genuine interest. At one point, he forgot he was eating and had a piece almost to his mouth for a full five minutes as he listened to Crowley talk about bioluminescence, anglerfish and the Kraken.

Aziraphale, for his part, sat between them and ate, content to just listen, a smile on his lips that he couldn’t keep off and wouldn’t want to if he could.

Then Crowley nudged him.

“Hm?”

“A little help here?” the demon hissed. “I can’t remember whether the Kraken’s related to Moby Dick or not.”

“As one is cephalopodan in origin and the other’s a sperm whale, albeit fictional based on a real one, I would rather suspect not. Why are you telling him about this again?”

Had he…what was the way Crowley would describe it? Zoned out a little after all?

“Because he asked.”

Aziraphale was about to open his mouth and say something along the lines of not every question needing an answer but stopped himself as he remembered something.

Questions were never not important to Crowley. He always asked them, didn’t he? ‘What was it he said that got everyone so upset?’ came to mind as one of the big ones. Even when they’d gotten him…well, he had always believed in answering them if possible since. Valued wanting knowledge, really, just as much as Aziraphale even if he hadn’t ended up collecting books.

“Well, yes, okay. I understand.” The words themselves were neutral but his voice was soft and apologetic.

He didn’t see Crowley’s expression change but then a hand covered his where it lay flat on the table. The warmth coming off that thin-fingered hand was wonderful and reassuring.

And it made Aziraphale redden ever so slightly.

“If the Kraken exists, why can’t Moby Dick?”

The angel turned back to their visitor. “I’m not saying it can’t. I’m saying the fiction was based on a real whale. Mocha Dick.”

“What, made of coffee?”

“No, Crowley,” Aziraphale sighed. “After the island. It would hardly be a white whale if it was made of coffee, would it? Are you enjoying the food, Adam? You can say no if you aren’t.”

The boy nodded. “The ones with coats on - “

“- Seaweed, Adam, they’re called futomaki. Well, those particular ones are.”

“Right. Okay. Well, I like ones with crab in, for one. The crunchy ones are odd, though, and the green stuff burns my tongue. Can I take some home?”

“And what exactly would you use it for?” Aziraphale asked, suddenly suspicious, at the same as Crowley exclaimed, “Of course you can.”

“Crowley, you are _not_ stealing their wasabi supply!”

“Why not?”

“Because they need it!” Honestly, sometimes!

“What kind of excuse is that, ‘they need it’? Who says Adam doesn’t need it more?”

“Adam is not running a business where it’s an - “Aziraphale stopped. He was being tag-teamed by Adam and Crowley, both looking pleading and innocent at the same time. He sighed. “We will buy him some on the way.”

“Way?”

“Way to drop you home. You are not taking the train back, not on a Saturday.”

“He made it here no issue. Nothing’s gonna happen to him.”

Aziraphale’s mouth worked odd shapes for a moment or two. Crowley may be right but that wasn’t really the point.

“Perhaps not but _I_ would feel a whole lot more comfortable if we brought him back safely.”

The hand that was still covering his on the table shifted to the side so it could squeeze his more effectively.

Adam looked a bit perturbed. For a moment, Aziraphale thought it might be their touching that was the cause and had to brace mentally against the admittedly very small knee jerk urge to pull away. He didn’t want to pull away. Never again.

Then the boy spoke and revealed the real reason. “But I don’t want to go home yet. I’m having fun.”

No, that wasn’t quite perturbed, was it? Or rather, it was more than that, even if he couldn’t put his finger on it.

Despite what he had said earlier, the angel could truthfully say that he shared the sentiment. He was enjoying himself, too, even if he had never considered this, and he wasn’t ready for it to end.

Not to mention the compliment inherent in that statement, of course.

He smiled at the boy. “I wasn’t saying now, either, I believe. Just that when it _is_ time, we are _driving_ you home.”

The look he sent Crowley brooked no argument, but he only found a crooked smile and slightly raised eyebrows. Was it something he’d said?

It was only later that he remembered Crowley’s habit of offering a lift when Aziraphale was feeling vulnerable and now the angel had extended that to Adam. Oh.

Right then and there, what he said was, “Well, that was lovely, wasn’t it? Now who’s ready for some dessert?”

“They don’t serve dessert here, angel.”

Aziraphale feigned surprise and disappointment. “Oh dear. I had forgotten. Well, then, perhaps we should save it - “

Crowley got up, in that fluid movement Aziraphale had always admired but had yet to voice said admiration.

“Come on,” the demon said. “There’s a gelato bar close by.”

“Is there? How wonderful!” He got the expected grimace for that, but it was rather tempered this time. In fact, he thought he recognised a glint in the yellow eyes.

“Still owe you an ice cream, don’t I?” Crowley said as they left. Quiet. Slightly pained.

“Oh,” the angel said. How could he ever forget? Even if they had been prepared. His heart sank a little. “Of course. I’m sorry, my dear, I didn’t - “

“I was the one suggesting it, angel, it’s not your fault.”

“Why not pick something else, then?”

Crowley didn’t answer, just gave a smile that was closer to a grimace than anything.

“You know I wouldn’t have minded.”

“No but it’s…well, it’s what kids like, isn’t it? Not fancy mousse cakes or salt caramel baskets with liquorice bombs dripped with orange sauce or whatever.”

“They like a lot of things, to the best of my knowledge. But you’re right, ice cream is much better. Hmm…wonder if they have hazelnut.”

Crowley grinned suddenly and Aziraphale felt his heart lift a little again.

The demon slapped a hand onto Adam’s shoulder and his grin was answered in the kid’s smile. “Let’s find out, then, shall we?”

And with that, a small and strange entourage of a boy, his dog - Dog had been told to stay under the table and had obliged, nobody taking any notice of him - a demon and angel set out to gorge on ice cream, the best that they could find.

And if Adam ate more ice cream than he ever had, in flavours he’d previously thought could only happen in America, and Crowley almost drowned a duck as it choked on the chocolate wafer of his 99-a-la-Italy, which had an actual waffle cone and real vanilla and cream in the soft-ice, that he ‘accidentally’ dropped, and if Aziraphale was doubled over with laughter as the duck retaliated and Dog tried to help, though whether it was Crowley or the duck was never clear, and it all ended in a great pile of duck, dog and demon, all of them covered in ice cream, what of it? How could you ever argue that it wasn’t spending the day well? Especially when you throw in a tour of the more interesting, which often meant gruesome, historical sites nearby.

And if the nightmares and trauma had been pushed out properly, at least for a while, wasn’t it all worthwhile?

* * *

“Why don’t you have children? Together, I mean.”

The question came out of the blue, or so it seemed, from the back of the car.

Crowley almost braked hard enough to crash the car due to shock at the question. Aziraphale had to admit he knew exactly how he felt.

He looked at the boy, sat with his dog in his lap on the backseat, calm as anything though they were doing 90mph through the streets, through the rear-view mirror, convinced he was pulling some sort of prank or he was talking in his sleep. Something that would be explain why. Not only was he evidently wide awake, it looked as though he was being perfectly serious in his question.

To have to explain…and to an 11-year-old…well…

“Well, you see, Adam - “

“What do they teach you at school?” Crowley asked at the same time.

“Nothing. Nothing interesting, anyway. It’s all just dead kings and dead poets and stuff. Planets. Planets were fun. Geometry’s boring.”

“Okay. Very well. And did they, ah, teach you any…biology yet?” the angel ventured.

Adam’s look of incomprehension cleared almost immediately. “Oh. That. I know about that. But what’s that got to do with anything? You’re angels, not humans.”

“I’m a demon, not an angel.”

“Same thing, isn’t it?”

Said angel and demon looked at each other at that. Once upon a time they might have argued with that but now, after everything, there didn’t seem much sense in it. The boy had a good point.

“I don’t see why the same rules have to apply. You have wings and everything,” Adam continued. “Humans don’t have that. I certainly don’t.”

 _Technically no, even if your father started out as an angel, but normal humans aren’t the Antichrist, either._ Aziraphale _w_ as about to say that when Crowley beat him to it. Sort of.

“Humans normally can’t do what you can either, Adam. But the…well, it’s not that we’re…it’s not physically possible for us to…” He trailed off, grimacing. The angel knew how he felt.

“There are rules that apply to all of God’s creatures,” Aziraphale tried. “Well, for a given value - the point, however, is that we may be something other than human, but we cannot between us have a child, that is, birth one.”

He was still looking at Adam through the rear-view mirror but even so, he thought he could see Crowley’s ears slowly turn a deep red, visibly so even in the gathering dark they were driving in.

That caused the boy to pause and frown in thought for a moment.

“You could adopt one,” he then pointed out.

It didn’t occur to either the demon or the angel until much later that Adam had neither at any point questioned that they were, well, together, nor seemed to have any issue with it in any way. It seemed that to him, it was as much a fact as them being supernatural entities and just as natural.

When they did, Aziraphale grinned and Crowley shook his head, smiling.

“I…suppose we could,” Aziraphale conceded in the here and now, albeit it a little slowly, almost hesitantly. “If we wanted to, I suppose it would be possible.”

He realised then that at no point in this unexpected and slightly absurd conversation - didn’t beat the beak sharpening one but then again, little did - had he actually said that he didn’t want a child. Nor had Crowley, come to think of it, which he would have honestly expected.

No, that wasn’t quite fair, was it? He had thought of Crowley with Warlock earlier, hadn’t he? And how good he’d been with him, aside from the attempts to…well, he could hardly be blamed for that, could he? And hadn’t he earlier thought about the demon’s soft spot for children, too? It wasn’t as though it had ever come up between them, was it?

Then again, when they’d taken six millennia of knowing each other, not to mention an averted apocalypse, to get to this point, it was perhaps a bit much to pop that sort of question so soon after.

Would Crowley _want_ to have a child? And the more important question, one together with Aziraphale?

But that still didn’t solve one of the essential questions; how would they cope with having a child, no, _their_ child, grow up and grow old and die, while they remained as they had always been?

A near-collision with another car revealed that Crowley’s mind was also grappling with some stuff and Aziraphale couldn’t find it in himself to admonish him. Instead, he just grabbed hold of a bony knee.

“Do you want to have one?” Adam asked.

“That - why are you asking any of this?” Aziraphale countered, keeping his voice gentle. It was a bit of an effort.

For a moment, it looked as though he wasn’t going to answer at all. Then he shrugged and the angel honestly expected him to say something along the lines of ‘I don’t know’ or ‘just a thought’ or something similar.

Except…he didn’t.

“Because I…” he trailed off for a moment, seemingly thinking it through. “Because I like you.” As though that explained any - except, it did. It honestly did. He was only eleven, after all. Independent and all but still…

“Well, that’s…that’s incredibly kind of you, Adam. Honestly. Thank you. But I…I don’t think that we could bear it.” Another pause accompanied by a thoughtful look.

“Because they will age and you won’t, you mean?”

Well. That was hitting it spot on, wasn’t it?

“Ah. Yes. Quite, I’m afraid.”

“Oh.”

The inside of the car lapsed back into silence. Come to think of it, Crowley had stayed silent for quite a large portion of the conversation. Only his somewhat erratic driving, even compared to his normal reckless one, gave any real indication of what was going on behind those yellow eyes.

Aziraphale found that he desperately wanted to ask his demon what he was thinking but he wasn’t sure what the answer would be. No, that wasn’t right. That wasn’t the reason

There was one telling thing, though whether that actually made it clearer or not, he couldn’t say; the knuckles were white where they gripped the steering wheel.  
It didn’t matter, then, did it? His thoughts on the matter, that was. His demon was struggling, whatever the exact reason, and Aziraphale would help him. That was all there was to it.

“Crowley? Would you slow down a bit or, or stop the car?”

“It’s getting late,” the demon replied, and the slight hiss to his voice was another indicator. “We need to get him home soon.”

“Five minutes won’t make a difference. Please?” It wasn’t playing fair, he knew, but he had to say it with his voice since the head wasn’t turned towards him, almost demonstratively so.

Crowley glanced at him, swallowed and then nodded. He wrenched the car into a side-lane and stopped.

Then he turned around to face Adam and even through the sunglasses, it was clear that he was glaring.

“What did you have to go and say all of that for?” he demanded. Or rather, it ought to have sounded demanding and harsh. It had more than likely been _intended_ that way, knowing the way the demon liked to present himself.

What it came out as was nowhere near that, however. In fact, it sounded somewhat small and rather pained.

Adam blinked, a little rattled and confused, but didn’t say anything. Dog, however, sat up and growled at the demon, always protective of its master.

Aziraphale tried to mediate. “Crowley, he wasn’t trying to be - “

“I know that, don’t I?” Crowley retorted. He paused, swallowed and said, far more quietly, “That doesn’t actually make it any better.”

The angel frowned. How could he make it better? It wasn’t a question of if he could because he had to. Somehow.

“Would you…have liked to?” he asked. Perhaps this ought to have been a conversation in private, but he also knew that if he waited, they’d both try to dance around it, as they always did. Metaphorically, angels and demons danced as well as anyone. “If it was possible, would you?”

For a very long moment, it looked as though Crowley wasn’t going to answer. He just continued to stare in Adam’s direction. Then he gave a nod. A very small one, granted, and jerky, but nevertheless a nod.

“Oh, my dearest,” Aziraphale murmured, his heart clenching. He didn’t know what else to say.

” I’m sorry,” Adam said. He suddenly looked much more like a kid than the angel could remember he had before. “I didn’t mean to…I just thought…” He trailed off as he looked between them.

Dog had stopped growling and had switched to worried whining instead.

“It’s…fine,” Crowley managed at last. “You couldn’t have known. It’s fine.”

He seemed to shake himself, trying to shake it off as though it really didn’t matter, offering a smile that was a bit too true to his…other shape.

“Crowley…”

“Aziraphale, shut up. Just. _Shut the_ _fuck_ _up_.” The moment the words, harshly said, were out of his mouth, the lanky body stiffened.

Then his head whipped around to face the angel who was staring at him, wide-eyed and hurt.

“Angel, I’m sorry,” Crowley said, quickly, urgently. “I didn’t - “

“No, no, you were quite within - “

“No, I wasn’t. I should’ve said, I know, I just…” He stopped speaking, reaching out and grabbing both of the angel’s hands, tightly.

Aziraphale caught them gratefully and squeezed them, gently. He then leaned forward and gave his demon a small and gentle kiss on the lips, which the other returned. The novelty and loveliness of being able to do that hadn’t worn off, though to be honest, he doubted it ever entirely would.

After a moment, Crowley pulled away though it felt reluctant.

Adam continued to stare, regret and apology written all over his features.

The demon looked at him again, inscrutably, for what seemed like a long time. Then he huffed a small laugh and pushed the sunglasses up.

“Thank you,” he said.

That added ‘confused’ to the boy’s expression. “What for?”

“If you hadn’t grown up like you had…well, I’m really glad we screwed that one up.” He glanced over at his angel briefly. “And that you came to visit.”

“I really didn’t mean - “

“I know.” He paused. “Six millennia on this planet and you can still learn something.”

“That’s part of the point, isn’t it, my dear?” Aziraphale asked, giving a small smile.

Crowley pursed his lips and nodded. “Yeah. ‘Course. Right, then. Let’s get you home, shall we?”

* * *

“You could have said something, you know,” Aziraphale murmured as they watched Adam walk up to his house in the gathering dark.

“About what?” the demon asked. He was leaning up against the side of the car while the angel stood straight up beside him.

“Don’t play dumb with me, Crowley. Please.”

“…you don’t have to be that forceful about it.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” A moment’s quiet where he shoved his hands in his pockets as far as they could go and stared straight ahead of him.

“I tried not think about it,” he said, quietly, though his voice held that same quality it had had when Aziraphale had found him in the bar after returning to Earth, discorporated. “Any of it, really.”

He glanced at the angel out of the corner of his eye. Oh.

“Oh, dearest,” Aziraphale said, equally quietly. He slid his arm into the crook of Crowley’s and pressed close. “I am sorry.”

Another moment’s quiet as they watched the front door open before Adam reached it, both of his parents standing in the doorway. Neither of them looked particularly happy, though the thundercloud was definitely Mr. Young.

Then the demon said, as quietly as before, “It takes two to tango, doesn’t it?”

 _The only dance I know is the gavotte, but_ , “Any dance you’d like, my dear.”

Crowley, for the moment sans glasses, blinked. Then his eyes widened _._

“Aziraphale?” he queried, and the amount of feelings and questions packed into that single word was staggering.

“Crowley,” the angel answered, hoping that he’d managed to convey an answer to both.

It seemed that he had; without a word the redhead untangled one hand from a pocket and wrapped his arm, the one Aziraphale had linked with, around his angel.

“You think we could?” he asked.

“Possibly, yes. I think it’s worth the try, really, however it turns out. You can’t help but get attached, can you?” He nodded to indicate the boy ahead of them but by implication children and humans in general. “Not right now, though.”

“No,” Crowley agreed. “Not just yet.” He turned his head to rest his chin on the other’s slightly bent head, inhaling deeply. The angel smiled, one which grew when he felt the other’s tension slowly leach out of the slimmer body.

At hearing raised voices, or rather, a raised voice, they both turned their attention back to the Young house. The door had closed, as you didn’t have arguments like that out in public, after all. But even so, the angel and demon could hear it quite clearly. Possibly nobody else could.

“Really. To tell him off for being kind and considerate.”

“You told him off when he came to the bookshop,” Crowley pointed out.

“I did not. I just…” Aziraphale made a gesture with his hands “…expressed my concern.”

A slight cock of a head. “Sounds like his father’s doing roughly the same thing, for the same reason.”

The angel sighed. “Well, _yes_ , but - “

The demon pursed his lips slightly then smiled. “No, you’re right. We should definitely go and explain.”

“Crowley…” Aziraphale tried to admonish but it was weak and unconvincing, even to his own ears, and he let the demon strut his way up to the house, following right behind him.

It was Aziraphale who ended up knocking, however. The noises from inside stopped. Then came the carefully measured and restrained footsteps of someone who doesn’t want visitors to know they’re not pleased. Perhaps.

The door opened to Mr. Young’s cautious, sceptical features.

“Hello,” said Aziraphale in the nicest, most disarming and reassuring manner he could. “I am so sorry to disturb at this hour. We are - “

And how should he end that sentence? He hadn’t a clue. Anything he could come up with would either not be within spitting distance of believable or it would put Adam into further trouble rather than help him. Possibly both.

Crowley looked about ready to employ the same method he had with Mary Hodges, formerly Loquacious.

“I know who you are,” said Mr. Young, shortly, frowning at them as though they were being silly, “and I would have thought you would have had better sense than invite Adam for a visit and then let him go all the way to London on his own instead of coming to pick him up in that car of yours.”

There was a hint of admiration in the voice then, from someone who liked a car that was well taken care of.

Both supernatural beings stared, the angel blinking, completely nonplussed by what was going on. They did try to scramble to make it seem like yes, that was it. That was what happened. Definitely. They were on top of it and knew what was happening.

“Yes, quite, and I do apologise. The car had to unexpectedly go into service, you see. Some urchin - “

“Hoodlum,” Crowley corrected, not quite sure that was up to date either but figuring that it would fit within Mr. Young’s understanding of things.

“- hoodlum, yes, smashed a window and cut some wires. It would’ve been entirely inadvisable to drive and unfortunately, they weren’t done until after lunchtime today.”

He smiled and Mr. Young paused; his expression had lightened a little. “We ought to have come down by train, of course, and have told you beforehand, but - “

Mr. Young sighed, interrupting him. “You don’t need to say anything else. I do know my own son.” He pulled his head back to call into the house. “Adam. Come here. The least you can do is come and say goodbye to your uncles.”

That single word, so very unprecedented and unexpected, especially coming from Mr. Young, knocked the two supernatural beings for six while they were still recovering from the first blow.

In the circumstances, they handled it rather well.

Adam appeared in the door, having obviously been nearby. He looked at his father and the looked between his two ‘uncles’.

“Bye,” he said and held out his hand. Aziraphale took it and shook it, smiling.

“Goodbye, Adam. I’m glad you came to visit us.” He meant it, too. And, well, ‘uncles’, eh?

“Yeah,” Crowley agreed. He didn’t seem interested in handshakes, just looked at the kid. He was grinning slightly, though.

“Well, we’d best be off,” the angel said then, letting go and stepping back.

“Can I come visit again, soon?” Adam asked. He looked at his father.

His father sighed. “You’ll do it anyway, I know.”

Mr. Young looked at the angel and demon for a moment, as though trying to focus on something about them. Then he shook his head, mumbled something about his wife and her relatives and went back inside.

“What did you do?” Crowley hissed.

Adam shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. But this way, you can try it out, if you want.”

“Well, really,” Aziraphale said but the warmth in his voice betrayed him.

“Uncles, huh?” Crowley mused. His slight grin had turned into a broad smile.

* * *

They walked back to the car, having waved goodbye to Adam and his parents.

“Do you think they’ll allow him to grow up?” Aziraphale asked, quietly.

“Dunno. Suppose it depends on whether they discover he still has some of his powers.”

“At least some.”

“Yeah. But probably they’ll just ignore him, if they do notice. Pretend he isn’t there. Or suspicion still slides off of him, of course.”

“But supposing they do discover him and don’t ignore it,” the angel persisted.

“You were the one suggesting we kill him in the first place,” Crowley pointed out. They had reached the car but didn’t get in just yet.

Aziraphale gave a pained expression. “Well, yes. I know. I _know._ But that was…oh, it doesn’t really matter that it was different, does it?” he asked in a defeated, pained tone.

“Not really, no.” Crowley paused, looking closer at his angel. “That doesn’t mean you were in the - angel, you’re allowed to make mistakes, you know.”

“No. We aren’t.” That they made them anyway was an entirely different matter and they had usually only gotten away with it because Heaven and Hell never saw past the paperwork.

“We weren’t meant to care about the planet, either,” Crowley said, his voice suddenly quiet. Almost soft.

“Nor each other.”

“No. Definitely not each other.” This time, there was no ‘almost’ about the softness.

The ginger snaked an arm down and around the blond’s waist, pulling him as close as he could. Then, without a further word, he buried his face in soft, blond hair, inhaling deeply. Aziraphale slid his own arms around a slim waist, basking in the warmth, both physical and metaphorical, that came off his demon.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way, dearest,” he whispered into a long neck. Then he saw that little snake tattoo and shifted, carefully so as not to shift Crowley’s grip on him in turn, to kiss it.

The demon didn’t quite stiffen but he did pull back to look at the other. He brought a hand up to touch the tattoo, gingerly.

“Was that - should I rather not have?” Aziraphale asked. He couldn’t recall he ever had before but it had felt the right thing to do.

“Angel…”

“I’m sorry, I - “

He was silenced by a kiss on his lips, equally soft but aching in its sweetness. The angel almost melted into it, clinging onto the other, who was holding onto him in turn.

“Don’t ever apologise for that sort of thing,” Crowley said when they parted, his voice still quiet but no less fierce for that. “Do you understand? None of it.”

Aziraphale nodded, both to what had explicitly been said and what had been implied.

The demon let go of him but only so that he could slip into the driver’s side of the car. The angel slid in on the other side a moment after and they drove off, leaving Tadfield behind.

“If that dog has slobbered on the seat,” Crowley grumbled at some point.

“It doesn’t slobber.”

The ginger raised an eyebrow at him, turning his head to look at the blond. “Is that right…uncle?”

“You have to admit that it was quite a good way of getting out of trouble.”

“Well, yes. Obviously, it was. It was also still either lying, twisting reality or both.”

“Yes. Quite.” A pause. “Crowley, do you really think it’s safe, leaving him like that?”

“Safe as anywhere else, I should imagine. It’s not as though either side only has the one exit, is it?”

“No,” Aziraphale sighed in agreement. “But that wasn’t what I meant.”

“You meant that we ought to check in on him regularly. Down here where he lives rather than having him come up to London. To make sure nothing happens.”

“Yes.”

“Need I remind you of how ‘well’ we did last time?”

“Technically speaking, we did very well on the whole look out for the boy.”

“Wrong boy.”

“Well, yes. Technically. But still, we - Crowley, the deer, watch out for the deer!”

“It’s in the field!” Nevertheless, he swerved a little.

“Only because it scampered for its life.”

“You eat venison. With relish. Well, more often with red currant sauce, really, but - “

“That is completely not the point! You can’t just kill - oh, ha-ha. Very funny.”

“What? What did I do?”

“You made that deer run out to prove the point about innocent creatures.”

“Wh - no! I wouldn’t - why would I want to do that? I’m a demon, remember?”

“I thought we were on our side, now.”

Crowley paused. “We are,” he quietly agreed.

There was silence in the car for a few long moments after that.

Then Crowley sighed. “Alright. Let’s do it.”

“Do what?”

“Look after the kid. Make sure nobody gets to him so he can get to grow up.”

“That would be constant vigilance.”

“Nah. Pop in on a regular basis ought to do it.”

“It’s not as though we’re going to get intelligence on what’s planned. It could be at any time.”

“Really? Paperwork loving Heaven is going to do something randomly?”

“Your - Hell might. Chaotic and all that.”

“That’s just the PR line, you know that. Sticklers, the lot.”

“Well, they were angels, I suppose.”

“Exactly. Probably they’ll only remember when the anniversary comes around or something.”

There was a moment’s pause. “Of course, if he still has his powers, or some of them, then he could end up in trouble all on his own.”

“How do you mean?”

“Puberty is right around the corner, isn’t it?”

“Oh, dear.”

“Exactly. Might need a bit more help, then.”

“Yes. Definitely.”

They sat in comfortable silence until they reached the London suburbs.

“So, we’re agreed, then?” Aziraphale asked as they raced their way through the still mostly deserted streets. “We check up on him on a regular basis?”

Crowley raised an eyebrow, a hint of a smile playing across his lips. “We are his uncles, after all, aren’t we? We’re supposed to show up at odd times and bring stuff.”

“Yes. Quite.” The angel reached over to place a hand on a bony knee and smiled warmly.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Shut up,” the demon replied but there was no bite to the words. In fact, there was the complete opposite.

Then again, Adam had given him something of what he’d wanted, hadn’t he? Not just Crowley, Aziraphale as well.

* * *

They sent a book for Adam when they got back to London.

Aziraphale had meant to bring him back to the bookshop and give him one, on Victorian zoology and the bizarre creatures they’d made and put in their cabinets of curiosity, before they brought him home. It wasn’t the best copy, but it would be a start for a curious boy - and it wouldn’t hurt too much to part with it, either.

In the end, he’d plain forgotten in the enjoyment of the day and going to buy the wasabi, and to have to go back would have made them even later getting him home. Of course, he could have miracled it there but…and in any case, the delivery man was quite a decent fellow.

When they did go down to visit, not long after, they got to meet the Them properly, but that is another story, perhaps for another time

Eventually, they bought a cottage not far from Tadfield. They kept the bookshop, of course - to make a book lover choose between two places to store their books when they could have both is impossible - and still spent time there. They were merely…practical about it all.

And if people remarked on the most beautiful, well-tended garden in which one man sat peacefully reading while another sat leaned up against him, apparently basking in the sunlight, they tended towards how remarkable the garden was when neither seemed to be doing much, if any, gardening

**Author's Note:**

> I know this is a bit of a mix of the show and the book but again, written in the middle of the night, things sometimes get a bit muddled together. Oh, I do know there's no stairs readily visible in the show but I saw this lovely concept art in the companion and that apparently worked its way in. As far Aziraphale having a flat above the shop...maybe Adam just assumed there would be one when he rebuilt it.  
> Feedback is loved and treasured as long as any criticism remains constructive.


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